Phase+1-+Community+Selection

 I am currently student teaching in a 10th grade English Language Arts classroom at Plainedge High School, which is located in Massapequa, Long Island. Being that 94% of the Plainedge student body is white, I decided it would be more beneficial for me to observe a different community for the Linguistic Dimensions Study. I have chosen to examine Junior High School 226 Virgil I Grisson. J.H.S. 226 is located in South Ozone Park, Queens and is one of 46 schools in New York City District #27. It is a public school that serves 1,752 students in grades 6-8. I used the U.S. Census, Record Information Services to examine the demographics of South Ozone Park. As of 2000, 20.8% of the population was White, 35.7% Black, 22.7% Hispanic, and 12.8% Asian. According to [|www.education.com] 49% of the student population at J.H.S. 226 are Black, 27% are Asian, 21% are Hispanic, 2% are white, and 1% are American Indian.

I noticed that many of the stores surrounding the school display signs in both English and Spanish. Within a block radius of the school, I took note of both a Spanish restaurant and a Spanish bakery. Being that such a large percentage of both the community and the school are Hispanic, I have chosen to focus specifically on the Hispanic population for this assignment. Since my mother is a teacher at J.H.S. 226 I have been granted permission by the administration to observe in their building on the days I am not student teaching at Plainedge. To learn more about the students’ use of language, linguistics, and literacies in school I will be examining their writing assignments and observing their spoken language in the classroom. Because I am curious if these students speak differently in the classroom as opposed to outside the classroom, I have also asked for permission to observe their use of language in the cafeteria. I will be using Facebook as a tool to learn more about the students’ use of language, linguistics, and literacies out of school. There is currently a Student Group dedicated to JHS 226 on Facebook, that is comprised of429 active members. The group has a wall with over forty posts and a discussion board displaying 8 separate discussion topics that I will use to become more informed of the students linguistic behavior. In addition to traditional research, I also plan to further study the community the school is located in, in hope to expand on my initial observations.